The Chevy box truck was low on gas and two quarts low on oil as James pulled into the Exxon station. He shoved the prepaid credit card into the slot and was pumping fuel in fifteen seconds.
One thousand dollars. That’s what Mrs. Trueblood had put on the card. If we needed more, all we had to do was ask her. If she thought we were being frugal with her funds, she would supply more. On the chance that I could make forty-four million dollars, I know that I would advance more.
“Take the card, buy a case of oil, and we should be set, amigo.”
I studied the truck. The magnetic signs on the side were nothing but reminders to me that we’d had one investigating job. More or Less Investigations. Yes, we were licensed by the state of Florida. But that didn’t mean that everyone who needed a PI firm called us.
It didn’t mean that anyone called us. I’d started a Facebook page for More or Less Investigations, and the only response I got was from kids who graduated from our high school. They were laughing at our endeavor, letting us know that if we were the same two guys they remembered from six years ago, we weren’t qualified to be dogcatchers.
I’m not sure that they were wrong.
I started a Twitter account, but only heard from people who wanted to know where our next “gig” was. I didn’t get that. And LinkedIn tended to be people who wanted business advice or wanted to sell something.
The business advice I had for them was: You need a private investigating firm. And for those who wanted to sell me something, I had no money to buy it.
So much for social networking. Mark Zuckerberg made billions by inventing Facebook. I was making squat.
I walked out with the case of oil and James drained two quarts into the engine. That process would be repeated many times during our trip.
“We could buy a brand-new truck if this deal comes through, Skip.”
“We could.” It was more of a mutter than a solid statement.
The drive into the Keys is not this adventurous, Third World country experience that some people imagine. They picture a jungle-like atmosphere, with thick mangrove trees and flocks of ospreys, forgotten outposts scattered by the water on each side of what is laughingly called a highway, and mysterious waterfront bars with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart drinking rum, smoking cigars, and planning nefarious deeds.
No, it’s nothing like that. It’s two lanes of traffic, occasionally broken by the excitement of four lanes for fifteen seconds where everyone floors the gas pedal to pass all the really slow drivers.
And when your Chevy box truck only goes fifty-eight miles per hour at its top end, you really can’t make up a lot of time. I had to face it. We were one of the really slow drivers.
Nonetheless, James kept on course. There is no other solution. If you want to get to Islamorada, you just keep it pointing south.
Occasionally, there are some breaks, like a diver’s supply shop that put up a billboard, LAST CHANCE FOR ALCOHOL, 34 MILES. People certainly didn’t want to drive to the Keys sober.
And in the middle of scrub pine and scrawny bushes, on this narrow strip of land that extends to Key West, there’s a sign saying: 7 ACRES. $175,000. What would you do with it? Put up a liquor store and sell alcohol?
“Remember D. B. Cooper?” James was smoking a cigarette, blowing most of his product out the window at some cheap shell shops and a roadside cigar store.
“The guy hijacked a plane, right?”
He nodded. “Nineteen seventy-one, Portland to Seattle, this mysterious stranger grabs a flight attendant and tells her he has a bomb in his briefcase. When they land in Seattle, he asks for two hundred thousand dollars and a couple of parachutes.”
The story was that D.B. jumped somewhere over Washington State and was never found. Five or six thousand dollars were recovered years later by some hikers, and the FBI figure to this day that he died in the jump, but it’s the only unsolved airline hijacking case in history.
“I know the story, James.”
“Never found the money, Tonto. Never found the body.”
“And your point is?”
“Well, we need to do some research on the Kriegel guy. He had the gold, and when the hurricane hit, he could have used that as an excuse to split and take the bullion with him.”
I shook my head. “Do you know how much that stuff would have weighed? You don’t just split with ten cases of gold. That would be-”
“Over two thousand pounds of the yellow stuff. I figured it out.”
James kept his eyes on the road, and we passed a place called the Caribbean Club. A big billboard there announced that this was where the movie Key Largo was filmed. So there were some bars where Bogey and Edward G. Robinson had hung out.
The faded letters also announced that the Caribbean Club featured karaoke every Wednesday. Too bad it was Thursday.
“Are you thieves or what?” James glanced at me with a sly grin on his face. “You want money, is this a robbery?”
We’d spent too many hours watching the old movies during college, when we should have been studying, and this one with Bogart and Edward G. was a classic. I knew the answer.
“Yeah, Pop, we’re gonna steal all your towels.”
And then we passed Craig’s, with an even bigger sign that touted: HOME OF THE WORLD-FAMOUS FISH SANDWICH. We were “crackers.” Florida natives. You’d think we would have heard of this. It being world famous and all.
Suddenly all the brake lights in front of us lit up at once. Red as far as the eye could see.
“Shit. Probably some accident up ahead.”
The Keys were legendary for traffic jams that could last all day. Or, in some cases, days.
“We’ve got four cases of beer.”
My roommate nodded. “Two big jars of peanut butter, a couple of jars of strawberry jam, and four loaves of bread.” We did. In the back of the truck. Just in case the money ran out.
“So, if there’s a traffic stop, we’re good for-”
“Oh, hell, at least two days.”